Five states will stop letting SNAP benefits buy candy, soda or other high-sugar items starting November 1, 2026, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s own tracking table. Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia all carry that same date in USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration list of approved purchase-restriction waivers, updated September 25, 2026. Three of the five had been pointed at an earlier fall date before USDA moved them, and the agency’s table is the only place that shows every state’s current, corrected date in one spot.
Two things worth tracking as the date shifts again: USDA has moved these five states’ start dates before, and the state packs and renewal and reporting calendar inside The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer are built to keep up when a restriction date changes. Track a state’s shifting deadline on the calendar →
USDA’s Updated Waiver Table
USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration approves these purchase restrictions as waivers to normal SNAP rules, one state at a time, and keeps a single national table listing every approved waiver along with its start date. The table’s September 25, 2026 update lists 23 approved state waivers in total. Five of them, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia, now share November 1, 2026 as their implementation date, after each one had been sitting on a different date earlier this year.
What Each State Is Restricting
The five waivers do not all cover the same items. Montana’s health department will exclude candy, high-sugar beverages, energy drinks and shelf-stable prepared desserts, defining a restricted beverage as one with more than 10 grams of sugar per 8 fluid ounces. North Dakota’s waiver, per USDA’s table, covers sweetened beverages, energy drinks and candy. South Carolina’s Healthy Food SC program restricts candy, energy drinks, soft drinks and other sweetened beverages statewide. Ohio’s approved waiver covers sugar-sweetened beverages and fountain drinks specifically. Virginia’s SNAP Healthy program is narrower still, limited to carbonated sweetened drinks, meaning non-carbonated energy drinks, unsweetened seltzer, juice, iced tea and milk stay SNAP-eligible there.
Why Two Start Dates Slipped to November
Ohio’s restriction was originally set for October 1, 2026, before USDA instructed the state to postpone it earlier this month; the state’s own account of the pause points to a request from USDA itself rather than a court order. South Carolina’s Healthy Food SC page describes the same kind of instruction from USDA’s Food and Nutrition Administration, which pushed South Carolina’s date from an earlier fall target to November 1. Montana’s health department similarly confirms its restriction was delayed from a planned September 30, 2026 start to November 1, 2026. USDA has not published a single explanation covering all three delays, and its national table simply reflects each state’s current, revised date without noting the earlier ones.
States Already Living Under a Restriction
Eight states on USDA’s table already have restrictions in force, with dates that have already passed: Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Indiana’s and Utah’s waivers took effect January 1, 2026, the earliest of the group, while Florida’s began in April and Arkansas’s in July. A further group of states, including Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, Hawaii and Nevada, has restrictions approved but not scheduled to begin until 2027 or 2028, so the list of states actually restricting purchases will keep growing well past this November. Each waiver runs on its own multi-year approval, typically two years from its effective date, after which the state has to ask USDA to renew it rather than having the restriction continue automatically.
The Five Waivers a Court Blocked
Not every approved waiver survived. A federal court vacated five of them, in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia, on June 22, 2026, in Aragon v. Rollins, a case filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. USDA’s table still lists the vacated status for those five states rather than removing them outright, which is why the current approved-and-active count sits at 18 rather than the full 23 the agency has approved since the restriction waivers began. The court’s order addressed how the waivers were noticed to the public rather than ruling on whether a state can restrict SNAP purchases at all, so a state whose waiver was vacated could still see USDA approve a revised version later.
What Stays SNAP-Eligible
None of the five November waivers touch a household’s core grocery list. Virginia’s program page is the most specific about the boundary: non-carbonated energy drinks, unsweetened seltzer, lemonade, juice, iced tea, iced coffee, milk and dairy alternatives, yogurt drinks, kombucha, infant formula and nutritional shakes all remain eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits there even after November 1. Montana’s rule draws its own line by ingredient rather than by category, defining candy and prepared desserts in regulatory language rather than by brand name, and exempting anything baked fresh in a store rather than sold shelf-stable. South Carolina and North Dakota’s restrictions work the same way, screening out a defined list of sweetened items rather than any broader category of food, so a SNAP shopper’s produce, meat, dairy and staple grocery purchases are unaffected by any of the five waivers.
Following a SNAP Restriction Rollout by State
USDA has changed these five states’ start dates more than once already this year, and its national table is the only place tracking every state’s current status at once. A household using SNAP benefits in one of these states still has no single notice explaining when the local rule actually takes effect or which items remain eligible once it does.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer includes a renewal document checklist and 51 state packs, so a household’s own SNAP and Medicaid paperwork keeps moving even when a state pushes a restriction date back a second time.
Compare a state’s current restriction date against The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer.
This article was written with AI assistance and checked by a human editor before it was published.
